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Thursday, 3 November 2011

3 November 2011 Pledis CEO Han Sung Soo Talks about Success with After School and Son Dambi Plus Reveals New Group Plans

In a recent interview with Hankyung news the CEO of Pledis Han Sung Soo talked about past success with Son Dambi, After School and Orange Caramel. He also revealed plans to debut two new idol groups in the coming year.

Popular idol Son Dambi received a lot of attention for the ‘chair dance’ that went along with her hit song “Crazy“. It turns out that it was actually Sung Soo who created the dance which emerged as the epitome of sexy choreography. Unknown to many people Sung Soo who used to work for SM Entertainment has a background in dance. During the interview he stated “The fact is that I’m a former dancer, in college I majored in dance and was a part of the National Dance Company of South Korea. I participated in overseas performances…I traveled a lot” he surprisingly announced.

After the successful debut of Dambi in 2007 and After School in 2009 with “Ah“, Sung Soo is now recognized as a talented hit maker. When asked what helped mold these talented stars Sung Soo mentioned that it is not easy and that great songs and performances are a combination of “…expressiveness, power, and being equally sexy“. His hit maker status got even higher after the debut of After School’s sub unit Orange Caramel whose bright cute and sporty clothes received a lot of attention on both music programs and charts along with positive reactions from fans. This caused Sung Soo to become comfortable with sub units and influenced his decision to debut the AS Red and AS Blue units. He feels every member has a great jewel like charm and the sub units help to display them individually.

After the great success of training their own artists Pledis is ready to continue expanding. Though Pledis is a small company they have a roster filled with an ample amount of trainees and every few months auditions for new trainees are held. As a progressive company Pledis looks for trainees in not only South Korea but includes neighboring Asian countries along with the United States of America where auditions in Los Angeles and San Francisco were recently conducted.

According to Sung Soo two male idol groups tentatively titled “New East” and “Tempest” are undergoing last minute training for their proposed debut in 2012. For now each group consists of five members. At the recent audition in Las Angeles four ‘hidden talents’ were found and became Pledis Trainees. There was no mention of the tentatively titled group “After School Boys” though their debut seems closer as a few members were recently featured in a CF for New Balance jackets and other items. Always looking for a way to set his idols apart from others Sung Soo is collaborating with Swedish producers to “…birth creative music“. He feels his team from South Korea is a great match with musicians from Swedan. Since Pledis has a good reputation for hit songs fans should anticipate more catchy tunes from the upcoming groups.

After School will return to Japan soon and resume promotional activities. Their new tap routine titled ‘tap slap’ is a weapon sure to entice and excite fans. Even with the success of multiple girl groups Sung Soo is confident in After School and when asked about their survival as a leading group at the beginning of 2012 he responded “…it’s going to be our After School!“